Possibly related note:

The tools to "Create bootable media" and "Enable PreOS" don't work either. In both cases, I get a pop up telling me I need to install the Windows AIK. That's impossible, since (a) I'm running Window 8.1 and (b) I have installed the Windows ADK. Indeed, I've already created a bootable WindowsPE USB drive - not with Disk Master, but by using the Windows Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment.

The website says the system clone is present in the free version, when it says: "System migration - Fast, easy and safely migrate system to a SSD without reinstalling windows."

It actually says this twice.

"Disk/Partition clone" is not a substitute: it does not create a bootable clone.

I'm not sure I follow. The boot partition and system partition are the same. I used the Disk/Partition clone to clone the whole disk. The disk that resulted would not boot. I'm not sure what you mean when you say the professional version "will do this better"? Do you just mean that professional works (creates a bootable disk) and the free version doesn't?

Also worth noting: I can create a bootable clone of the boot/system disk with Clonezilla. It's a bit inconvenient, in that you have to boot it from a thumb drive to do so, and - of course - it doesn't have other backup tools. Acronis also creates a bootable disk: the process is invoked from the main program in the ordinary Windows environment, but it reboots the computer and makes the clone while running in it's own non-Windows environment. I don't like Acronis for other reasons, though. Aomei says its free version can be used to create a bootable copy of the primary disk, but I haven't tried it.

Actually, to clarify: the boot partition and the system partition are on the same drive, but apparently they are different partitions. In the Windows Disk Manager it shows a 350 MB partition identified as "System Reserved" that identified as "(System, Active, Primary Partition"). Then there is a 465.42 GB partition - the C: drive - identified as "(Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)". The disk clone did copy both of them to the target disk ... the disk just won't boot.